Joan Mitchell

Joan Mitchell was an American painter and a leading figure of Abstract Expressionism. Born in Chicago in 1925, she spent much of her career in France, creating large, vigorous abstract canvases bursting with color and energetic brushwork. Though abstract, her paintings often grew out of memories of landscapes, gardens, water, and light, filtered through strong emotion.

She worked on a grand scale, sometimes across several panels, with slashing strokes and vivid color that convey powerful feeling. As a woman in a male-dominated movement, she fought hard for recognition and earned it through sheer force of talent. Mitchell is now celebrated as one of the great abstract painters of the twentieth century.